Popular fictional character Tara, who is a Bangladeshi Buddhist superheroine, has been featured in an episode of the Spider-Man comics.
Enigma (Tara Virango), who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics, is a native of Bangladesh. Through her mutation from a nano-virus, she gains superhuman powers, giving her some sort of connection to the Buddhist goddess, Tara.
The superheroine has been adapted by the scriptwriters at Marvel Comics in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #48 and #49.
Enigma makes her debut in Peter Parker: Spider-Man (vol. 2) #48, titled The Big Question.
She begins as Tara, seeking revenge against those who infected the Bangladeshi village of Malpura: AGK, Inc. She contacts Spider-Man in order to seek his help in bringing justice to the people infected and killed by the nano-virus.
The Malpura disaster is likely based on the 1984 methyl isocyanate leak in Bhopal, India, which killed thousands of people. Union Carbide, the owner of the chemical plant, has been heavily criticised for providing insufficient compensation to the victims of the disaster.
The AGK corporation is commissioned by the CIA to create an intelligent metal nano-virus capable of enhancing latent mutant abilities. AGK tests the virus on Malpura, killing four thousand people. Tara survives, but is infected with the virus, which grants her superhuman abilities.
Years later, she moves to New York City and adopts the identity of Enigma, patterning herself after the Buddhist goddess, Tara.
Tara is an actual Buddhist deity, who was said to have risen from a lotus flower, and has multiple aspects, each represented by a colour.
In Peter Parker: Spider-Man (vol. 2) #49, titled The Big Answer, she steals the fifty-million-dollar Star of Persia diamond from AGK’s vaults and bumps into Spider-Man. She contacts him via a series of psychic messages that shows him flashes of her memories of the Malpura disaster.
She then traces Spider-Man to his apartment and leads him across the city, which ends when she presents him with a red and yellow scarf (akin to a khata).
Then she bashes him in the head. When Spider-Man wakes up, he finds himself in AGK’s headquarters.
At the same time, Enigma meets up with the AGK head, Kirkland and his security director, Corman.
She demands AGK pay an additional fifty million dollars in compensation to be paid to the Malpura survivors in return for the Star of Persia.
Midway through negotiations, Corman refuses and threatenes her with a squirt gun filled with a virus that would kill her instantly. At this moment, Spider-Man arrives to the rescue and breaks the standoff.
Both the superheroes pursue Corman into a research lab where they fight. Suddenly, Corman accidentally shatters some of the test tubes unto himself, which quickly transforms him into the virus and disappears through the floor. At this point, Enigma disappears as well.
She later has a brief encounter with Peter Parker on the streets of New York. She thanks him for his help and disappears into the crowd.
